Technology

New York City Advocate Calls for NYPD to Use Body Cams

August 12, 2014

In response to the case of a Staten Island man who died in a cop’s chokehold, the New York City Public Advocate called Monday on Mayor de Blasio to curb bad police behavior by equipping officers with body cameras.

Letitia James implored de Blasio, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton and the City Council to support her proposal for a body-cam pilot program, saying, "We need action today!" the New York Daily News reports.

"Simply rewriting the rules is not enough," said James, apparently referring to Bratton's plan to retrain all officers in the use of force in the wake of Eric Garner’s death.

Garner died July 17 when a plainclothes police officer put him in an NYPD-prohibited chokehold while trying to arrest him for selling bootleg cigarettes on a Staten Island street.

I've been in law enforcement for nearly three decades, and early on I realized that good enough is never good enough. Whether it's the vehicle you drive, the reports you write, or the equipment you use, striving for the best almost always brings about the optimal outcome. For me, that philosophy carries through to everything I do and everything I use...

"Drone technology will give our cops and their incident commanders an opportunity to see what they're getting into before they go into harm's way," NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said Tuesday. "This can now get us a lot closer into areas that a helicopter wouldn't be able to get into.”